Trade magazines are notoriously the most boring of all publications: devoted to the technical minutiae and internal politics of any given business sector, the editorial is of strictly limited interest and, consequently, of strictly limited readability. The one glorious exception is the entertainment industry magazine Variety, which has been offering Hollywood, Broadway, and, latterly, TV world, insights in its own fantastic idiolect. In a self-celebratory mood, Variety has published a guide to its own "slanguage", which lets the outside world in on terms like "shingle", "oater" and "nabe" – go on, look 'em up.

As a long-term reader of Variety, I can report that Varietyspeak isn't as impenetrable as people would have you believe. Like most slang, it's pretty easy to work out from context: if they're referring to "helmer" Steven Spielberg it isn't difficult to realise it means "director", or that if someone "ankles" a project, they're walking out. But what's genuinely fantastic about it is how literary an experience it is looking through Variety: the writing is first cousin to the Broadway school of Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls and Blue Plate Special, and about as far from the likes of Packaging News as you can imagine. It makes sense if you realise Variety's roots are in covering the New York vaudeville scene, which Runyon was writing about, and was influenced by, in the first place.

Memories of Variety's brilliance have been embellished over the years; its most famous line, "Stix nix hix flix", came from a mock-up in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy, while the original was slightly – just slightly – less perfect: "Sticks nix hick pix."

But what's arguably most remarkable about the glossary is how many of the words don't seem strange at all: "biopic", "fave", "flop", "boffo", "dramedy", "sitcom" are part of everyday language, and any reasonably media-literate person would have no trouble accepting and understanding them.

Presumably, too, there was a time when "biopic" seemed like a properly outlandish term. Will our media-savvy language evolve to the point that everyone uses the word "shingle" to describe a small offshoot business, or "diskery" for record company? Better yet, could Varietyspeak attain a cult status of its own, like Klingon? Will weird little nerds start making their own films in Varietyspeak, and posting them on YouTube? We can but hope.